A Boring Dystopia

Children aren’t some sort of luxury.

Daycare is, though. What you're really talking about with daycare is paying for servants to watch your kids while you work or otherwise spend your time elsewhere.

There's a real economic benefit in socializing the cost of care and professionalizing child care as a profession. But daycare prior to Pre-K is primarily occupying the child's time and energy until the parents return. It's a hard trade off between your time and someone else's.

I don’t agree with all of this guy’s numbers but you absolutely should include the cost of children in the poverty line.

I think the point he hits on is the bizarre math of denying public child care to middle class Americans specifically. And I'm all for citing it as bad policy.

But it's a very separate thing from household poverty, precisely because being unemployed (or relying on someone who is) effectively solves your child care cost problem.